Leak-o! Duke Nukem 3D: World Tour Rumoured

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They’re releasing another Duke Nukem, then. Gearbox are muttering to themselves and engaging in dreadful brandter so yup, it’s on. Predictions: the return of jokes already ten years old when Duke Nukem 3D borrowed them twenty years ago; an awkward attempt to reframe Duke’s earnest trashiness as ‘ironic’; a game hoping to coast on former glories. If rumours and leaks are to be believed, the new game is Duke Nukem 3D: World Tour, a ‘remastered’ version of the 1996 FPS with new content and ugly lighting.

Anyway, the facts first. The Duke Nukem site has sprung back into life with a “Happy 20th anniversary” banner and a countdown to next Friday, which happens to be when Gearbox have a panel at the convention PAX West. Duke Nukem himself is also now on Twitter, engaging in banter, japes, and patter – largely with Gearbox head honch Randy ‘DuvalMagic’ Pitchford. Look at the state of this:

That’s the official stuff. Unofficially? One Redditeer passes along rumours that the game they’ll announce is Duke Nukem 3D: World Tour. The Duke Nukem site did briefly link to a ‘@DukeWorldTour’ Twitter, so the name might fit. World Tour is meant to be Duke Nukem 3D updated with some engine enhancements and new content. Supposedly it’s being developed by Nerve Software, who helped Gearbox on Aliens: Colonial Marines and have previously worked on console versions of old FPSs including Doom II and Wolfenstein 3D.

Supposedly these are screenshots from a press kit that’ll be sent out later (I’ve received no such thing myself, but wouldn’t expect to until the formal announcement).

I’m really not onboard with old games being updated with new lighting. It clashes with the original art, it never has the same spirit. But then I do insist Quake be played without texture packs or even texture filtering, so I’m a bit of a tedious purist.

You might remember that this wouldn’t be the first ugly updating of Duke Nukem 3D in recent years. The Megaton Edition was Duke 3D with heaps of expansions and an overhaul combining blurred sprites with an incongruous new HUD. I am, as I said, a tedious purist. The Megaton Edition, which was arranged by publishers Devolver Digital with Duke Nukem’s creators/former owners 3D Realms without Gearbox, was pulled from stores earlier this year.

Yeah. Deeply pointless. If you are a righteous puritan, I’m pretty sure GOG will give you the original in all its aesthetically-consistent glory under DOSBox. If you seek depraved modern “enhancements”, source ports have been doing this, for free, for years. You can even cram 3D character models in there if you want to see the alternate universe where the Quake-engine version of Duke Nukem Forever was released on time and then had all the original levels ported to it by fans in celebration of how good it was.

Some marketing droid has seen how many copies Doom just sold, and has decided that their portfolio needs to be diversified by leveraging the value of heritage IP assets to proactively capture the emerging market. And that’s why we can’t have nice things.

Funny that Gearbox always gets blame for DNF, when the only ones that fucked it up were 3D Realms. Gearbox did nothing but salvaging the mess 3D Realms had left behind and tried to make something resembling a coherent game out of it.

maybe. But honestly I couldn’t care less about a remake, and I got and liked even DNF and it’s dlc. A completely new adventure on other hand would be interesting, if not developed by Gearbox. (their only really good game for me is still Opposing Force)

Holding off on commenting toward the screens, I guess I’ll focus on how much fun Pitchford seems to be having talking to himself across two separate Twitter accounts. That guy really knows how to party.

Remake of Duke Nukem would be awesome. I find the original to have aged badly as it relies on the ‘run around in a maze’ to have fun technique. (limited memory meant they had to reuse the same textures, so unless your experienced in these fps eras, you get to get lost alot) But the everyday locales and rough humor stay with me to this day.
I was lucky though as I played the improved N64 version. (easier less puzzling navigation and superior graphics)